Jennifer Asbenson, who was 19 when she was abducted and nearly killed by convicted serial killer Andrew Urdiales, has described in detail how she escaped after he attacked her in a desert outside Palm Springs.
Asbenson says she accepted a ride to work from Urdiales, a then-former Marine whom she later learned had already killed multiple women. When she declined his advances and gave him a false phone number, she said he returned the next day, offered another lift and then turned violent within minutes. She told reporters and recounted in her memoir that Urdiales tied her wrists behind her back, drove her to a remote area and assaulted her, at one point biting and sucking at her neck.
Asbenson said adrenaline and what she described as "hysterical strength" allowed her to break the bindings and escape. She recalled praying for a miracle as the twine binding her wrists began to pop and said she used every skill she had to free herself, ultimately forcing her way out of the vehicle and running down the middle of the road while Urdiales chased her with a machete. A passing truck driver flagged down the teenager and took her to a police station, but Asbenson said investigators at the time did not have enough evidence to arrest the attacker.
The abduction occurred in 1992, and Asbenson told interviewers that she lived for years not knowing whether the man would be held accountable. Five years later, authorities arrested Urdiales and he eventually confessed to kidnapping Asbenson and to killing multiple women in California and Illinois. Prosecutors later called him one of America's most prolific serial killers.
Urdiales was convicted in California of murdering five women — Robbin Brandley, 23, in January 1986 in Mission Viejo; Maryann Wells, 31, in September 1988 in San Diego; Julie McGhee, 29, in July 1988 in Cathedral City; Tammie Erwin, 20, in April 1989 in Palm Springs; and Denise Maney, 32, in March 1995 in Palm Springs — crimes that prosecutors said occurred while he was stationed at U.S. Marine Corps facilities in Southern California. He had previously been convicted of killing Cassie Corum, 21, and Lori Uylaki, 25, both from Hammond, Illinois; and Lynn Huber, 22, of Chicago, in the mid-1990s. Authorities said Asbenson was the only woman who had escaped his attacks.
Urdiales was serving life sentences in Illinois when he was tried in California. A jury recommended the death penalty in 2018 after a judge found him guilty in the California murders. Asbenson attended court and, addressing Urdiales, told him: "I sincerely forgive you, and that does not mean what you did was right, it does not mean that one bit. And that does not mean that you don't deserve the death penalty."
A month after his California sentencing, prisoners and officials reported that Urdiales, 54, was found dead in his cell at San Quentin State Prison in 2018 of an apparent suicide. His case had also intersected with broader legal actions: former Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted two of Urdiales' death sentences to life in prison in 2002, and another sentence was commuted when Illinois temporarily banned capital punishment.
Asbenson has spoken publicly about the attack in interviews and in a memoir titled The Girl in the Treehouse. In her accounts she recalled that at one point during the assault she lost consciousness and experienced a sensation she described as "pure love" before waking to find the attack continuing. She said she believed, from the look in his eyes, that Urdiales "had done this before."
Law enforcement and prosecutors who worked on Urdiales' cases described a multistate pattern of violence spanning the 1980s and 1990s. His convictions in Illinois and California covered killings that investigators linked by geography, timing and the suspect's movements while he was stationed at Marine Corps facilities.
Asbenson's memoir and her statements at Urdiales' sentencing have become part of public discussion about survivor testimony and the long arc of some murder investigations. She has described surviving the immediate aftermath of the attack as a combination of instinct, faith and physical effort, and she has used public appearances to press for recognition of victims and survivors.
Authorities and victim advocates say cases like Asbenson's highlight challenges in gathering sufficient evidence promptly in abduction and sexual assault cases, the ways victims cope with trauma over decades and the role of later confessions and prosecutions in giving families and survivors a measure of closure. The convictions and Urdiales' death in custody closed one chapter in the multiyear investigation into a string of killings that spanned state lines and decades.